{% include "includes/auth/janrain/signIn_traditional.html" with message='It looks like you are already verified. If you still have trouble signing in, you probably need a new confirmation link email.' %}

With little more than a week to go until the mayoral election, a nearly five-year-old project run by candidate Paula Ryan continues to garner controversy.

Ronald Frano, Executive Director of the Palm Beach County Roofing & Sheet Metal Contractors Association, sent an e-mail to the mayor and commissioners last week saying Ryan never contacted his organization in 2006 to hire a contractor for Blue Roof (as Ryan claimed in a recent Post article).

Blue Roof, the program that put roofs on low-income homes after Hurricane Wilma, was run by then-interim housing director Ryan, who is running for mayor. The program was greatly criticized by an internal audit, although Ryan continues to defend it and say city administrators are lying about her role in the program.

The city’s internal auditor, Imogene Isaacs, said Ryan only sought out a single contractor, while Ryan claims she sent out an e-mail blast to find a contractor. The city ultimately hired Seal Tite, run by a contractor who Ryan had a previous relationship with.

Here’s the e-mail from Frano that was sent to the mayor and commissioners last week. Frano was the executive director in 2006, and still serves in that capacity:

TO THE MAYOR & CITY COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF WEST PALM BEACH:

This is my response to an article in yesterday’s Palm Beach Post where Mayoral Candidate Paula Ryan states she called our office for the Blue Roof program.

This response was sent to the reporter of the article and post on the site of the article.

“I called the roofers association in Palm Beach County, told them we needed to do as many roofs as possible, as soon as possible,” Ryan said. “We sent out an e-mail blast.” (Paula Ryan)

My answer:

This is blatantly untrue. I tried to reach the city to offer a free roof for a needy person and received no response. We are the Palm Beach County Roofing & Sheet Metal Contractors Association and we received no request for input on the blue roof program. Our member base is close to seventy members, most are licensed, bonded, insured and very qualified roofing contractors. No request for bids was issued. No phone calls were made by the city to our offices and none of our members were given the opportunity to submit bids. By the way, the free roof went to a resident of Lake Worth a city that showed professionalism.

Ryan said it’s not true, that she and her staff called and sent the e-mails to the association.

“Have him call me,” said Ryan, who has accused officials in the city of blaming her for problems in the Blue Roof program to cover themselves. “100 people got roofs. The roofers and contractors were contacted, they didn’t have the capability, and none of the members had the capability to do that much work in that short of a time period.”

Brad Aldridge, who served under Ryan as the housing rehab supervisor, backed up Ryan.

“All this bit about not going for competitive bid is nonsense,” Aldridge said on Monday. “When we first saw this project, Paula, I know, called the roofing association. We said we had a bunch of bad roofs, they couldn’t give me anybody’s names that had the capability of turning it off that fast.”

Frano said he has no political motives and only came forward after Ryan specifically mentioned his association in the article that ran last week. Frano is supporting Diane Cantone in District 4 race, according to Cantone’s Facebook page. Cantone has the same campaign manager (Rick Asnani) as Jeri Muoio.

“Some of (our companies) have 500 employees, there are plenty of large companies in our organization, that’s ridiculous,” Frano said. “Even if (Ryan) didn’t want to do one group, we’ve got probably 50 of them. We could have put together a consortium if we wanted to.”

Meanwhile, at this morning’s mayor-commission workshop, commissioners also had Blue Roof on their mind.

In what could have resembled the last city workshop when Mayor Frankel and Commissioner Kimberly Mitchell used the public time to criticize Commissioner (and mayoral candidate) Molly Douglas’ ethics, Commissioner Bill Moss added Blue Roof to this morning’s agenda.

Moss ultimately decided not to dig deep into Blue Roof at the public meeting, and Frankel seemed relieved. Although Frankel is supporting Commissioner Jeri Muoio for candidate, Blue Roof also could shed a negative light on the entire city leadership at the time, including Frankel.

“I put this on here because I wanted to have an opportunity for staff to brief me, and I didn’t know whether I could get it in advance,” Moss said. “I did have considerable opportunity with our internal audit staff to get all my questions answered. I’m going to take this off here now, I did get my questions answered and I do believe the commission response was appropriate. While the commission didn’t receive all the information I thought we should have, the commission really took no action it shouldn’t have.”

Moss was concerned that the city commission improperly approved Blue Roof after allegations that Ryan and city administrator Ed Mitchell pushed the single source contractor through.

Before the issue died at Monday morning’s meeting, Commissioner Ike Robinson also seemed concern about Blue Roof.

“Although you are satisfied with the answer you got, I’m going to say that staff sometime in the very near future also share some information to us, so I can be comfortable with what I have read and what you may have insinuated or alluded to,” Robinson said. “If staff would sometime in the very near future, like today, get to me and raise my comfortability level.”